guarded
by she.daydreams.in.colour
Summary: He should have seen it coming. A vampire bonds with its creator if he had feelings – human feelings – for his sire before he turned. He was human once; he had feelings for a girl, the same girl whose blood was used to turn him. He was sired to Tatia.


**Guarded**

_And I'm ready to love – I've been guarded long enough. (Guarded, Kevin Daniel)_

* * *

_____I've never been the kind to hold back,_  
_Though I've never felt the burden before_  
_And all these years I begged for vengeance____  
__Was only left with wanting more_  


He should have seen it coming. A vampire bonds with its creator if he had feelings – human feelings – for his sire before he turned. He was human once; he had feelings for a girl, the same girl whose blood was used to turn him.

He was sired to Tatia.

Perhaps it didn't manifest earlier because Tatia disappeared from the village after they turned. Perhaps it didn't manifest at all throughout the next thousand years of his life because Tatia was not part of that existence. Perhaps, perhaps – it didn't matter how many 'perhaps' he thought of because it would not change the fact that Tatia was back.

"Are you alright?"

Tatia looks at him with a quizzical smile, hazel doe-eyes almost twinkling as they reflected the lucence of the crystal chandelier that hung high in the mansion's ornate ceiling while they danced. She asked him for a ball to celebrate her return and he gave it to her, just like this dance, just like a place in his bed, just like everything else that he knew she wanted.

_So this is how it feels to be sired_, he thinks as he nods and returns her smile. Every part of his being wants nothing more than to please Tatia.

Every part, except one: his heart, or what's left of it.

He catches a flash of golden and lilac from corner of his eye as the original Petrova twirls into the waltz, and it makes him swallow thickly. Tonight Caroline Forbes is wearing a dress of soft mauve tulle that sways adoringly around her as she dances with Kol, who appears to be completely smitten by the beautiful baby vampire in his arms. His brother draws her nearer to him, closing the distance between the two of them so that she's pressed against Kol and Kol against her. Kol grins at her freely, his eyes filled with not only the brazen carefreeness characteristic of the youngest Mikaelson brother but more importantly, a glow of blithe contentment reserved solely for those who make him genuinely pleased.

His mind tells him that it's alright, tells him to hold Tatia tighter. And he does. But that thing in his chest, the one that's not supposed to beat, thrashes violently in its helplessness.

Kol lets go to allow her a spin, and as Caroline turns she glances at his direction and their eyes meet. He wills himself to look at her, hoping that she'll do the same, and for a single moment she does. A split second gaze is all that he's given, but it's enough to make him see the heartbreaking shade of blue that has hazed the light in her eyes.

She looks away and turns back to Kol with a reserved smile on her face as she utters words softly enough to avert vampire hearing. She must have made some excuse to stop dancing because Kol puts a hand behind the small of her back and leads her to their table.

He inhales sharply, his chest heavy with emptiness.

He hates Kol for being able to hold her that way. He hates Tatia for coming back and awakening the sire bond that slept deep inside him. Most of all, he hates himself because every nerve and fiber in his body wants the original Petrova, but his heart beats for someone else.

-o-

_But I can't be whole,  
'til I let all this anger go,  
The silent strain I've carried long enough. _

"Caroline."

He finds her alone outside the manor, gazing at the stars speckling the night time sky. He walks towards her, but she refuses to look at him and merely draws her shawl closer to her body.

It irks him.

"I see you've moved on to my brother."

He can feel how her pulse quickens when he hurls the acrid words at her, but his taunting is met only by silence.

"You know, I don't mind you playing nice with me to distract me while your so-called friends plot my end, but Kol -"

She finally turns to face him, a cold smile planted on her lips . "I don't need to distract you anymore, Klaus. Tatia's already doing a pretty good job at that."

"So now you're supposed to distract the next most powerful original, is that it?" he spats.

"Yes, because that's all I ever was, all I ever will be, right? A distraction? Some pretty little thing to dangle herself in front of you mighty originals while my friends plan how to get you killed?"

His face falls. He was so angry at her for being with Kol that he childishly wanted to hurt her with his words, but now that he's done exactly that, he realizes that the only person who has lost in the end is him.

"I never saw you as a distraction, Caroline, you know that I -"

"Don't, Klaus." She warns him, her voice trembling. "I don't need to hear it."

He loses control and grabs her by the shoulders, forcing her to look into his eyes. "I want you to hear it! You know what you were -"_ fuck "-_what you are to me."

There's a bitter taste in her mouth as her eyes start welling up, blurring her vision.

"I'm sired to Tatia. Everything I do for her, everything I feel for her – it's not real. It's not real." he struggles to say. He can't even breathe - he feels like he's suffocating from anger, from frustration, from helplessness - from everything pent-up inside.

He closes his eyes as he tiredly leans in, letting his forehead press against hers. He gets to breathe again only when he realizes that she didn't pull away, and that her frail hands are fisting tightly into his chest in an effort to bring him closer to her, as if any distance away from him would kill her. Her breath feels redeemingly warm against his face and it's the only thing that reminds him that he's still alive no matter how dead he feels inside.

"I know." she tells him quietly, her lips almost brushing against his as she lets him take her into his arms. "But it scares me that one day the sire bond will overwhelm you the way it did Elena. She tried to hang on to Stefan in the beginning but it's Damon that she's with in the end."

"I'm stronger than Elena."

"You know what the witches said. You can't fight the sire bond and it can't be broken. And I don't know how I'm going to live if that day comes when you tell me that everything between us is just barely a memor-"

He can't bear to hear her say those words because though he never wants them to happen, he knows that someday they will. So kisses her with everything he has, telling her without words how he truly feels inside while he still can. Her tears finally spill as her hands cup his face and she kisses him back.

And in that single fateful moment, there is no _yesterday_ or _tomorrow. _There is only_ now, _and_ now _means _forever_.

-o-

_I'm ready._

Two women wake up in Mystic Falls the next morning alone in their beds.

The first, brown-haired and hazel-eyed, simply smiles as she thinks that maybe the man she loves woke up early to attend to some 'family' business. She gets up and heads out of their room, but the smile is wiped off her face when she sees Rebekah Mikaelson waiting for her in the living room.

"Nik's gone."

Dread spreads through the original Petrova's face. "What do you mean?"

"He went away and he left me this house."

"No... He can't have..."

Rebekah smugly cocks her head towards the doorway, where Tatia's luggage has been packed. "You have ten minutes to leave or I will drag you out of my house. Remember, Tatia, I'm not sired to you."

"But he loves me... he would never..." the brunette stutters, her hand moving to clutch her pounding chest as disbelief overwhelms her.

Rebekah merely scoffs.

"Tick tock, tramp, your ten minutes has begun."

The second, blonde-haired and blue eyed, opens her eyes just as the first rays of sunlight filter into her room through the window that she does not remember opening. She sits up in her bed and is surprised when her eyes wander to the bedside table and she finds a box and a note there.

_Caroline,_

_My entire life, I've been fighting for all the wrong things. I don't want to lose now that I finally have something right to fight for._

_I don't know what or how long it will take, but I will break this sire bond, and I will come home to you. Until then, I ask only that you not forget me, and that you believe me when I say that I love you._

A tear quietly slips from her eye as she lays the note down and picks up the box. She opens it to find the bracelet he gave her barely on year ago, the same one she unceremoniously returned to him the night he first bared himself to her.

She wills herself to smile as she wears the bracelet, a band of symbols that stand for infinity. She vows to the world that it will never leave her wrist again until the day he comes back and they can be together, finally.

And because he is her epic love, she knows that somehow, someday, it will happen.

-o-

_And I can't be with you____  
__I don't even want to_  
_____I just wish your ghosts were gone_  
_Cause I'm ready to love_

_I've been guarded long enough_

Until then, she will wait.

-o-

A/N:

1. Hey guys, it's Erica. I write multi-chapter fics as **she. dreams. in. colour** here on FFN and I'm on tumblr as **erica-dreams-in-colour**. Feel free to check out my other stuff, links are in my profile page.

2. I started writing these oneshots as a venue for experimenting with writing styles and genres that I don't usually go for. So far I've done 'street' (Pink Slip), smut (The Alpha and His Mate) and now drama (Guarded). The next story I'm working on is:

**My Best Friend's Sister** (High School) – The sisters of your best friends are off-limits. That's perhaps the most sacred of all Bro Code ™ rules. Unfortunately, it's also the most broken one.

3. Purposefully taking a break from writing sexy stuff. The BF just read The Alpha and His Mate and Chapter 4 of Solstice - he laughed and was like "Well there goes half a decade of Catholic school education." :))


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